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The punchline is from Planet of the Apes, the Manhattan skyline with some weird giant needle sticking out of it. Neurotics in love, a blind date at Bouchons is a season in hell. Either crazy or dull, complains the homophobic writer (Julie Hagerty) of potential relationships, thus the bisexual Francophile (Jeff Goldblum) whose magazine ad she answers. "You're a first-class idiot." "And you're a castrating, frigid bitch." The fellow has a jealous roommate (Christopher Guest) whose maman (Geneviève Page) is "sort of, uh, theatrical," therapists on the sidelines (Glenda Jackson, Tom Conti) keep neighboring offices for anonymous flings. "Votre problème is very simple. It's not a question of l'amour but of sex." Blake Edwards material reliably excruciated by Robert Altman, an avalanche of half-told jokes on Big Apple dissonance. "Something mystical" for the couple, he supplies his own tears while she twists her lips in hunger, the camera is busy zooming in on the fish skeleton at the next table over. A peculiar cinematic constellation, Every Girl Should Be Married for the discarded standard of normalcy and The Tree of the Wooden Clogs for the denied art-house outing and Sunday Bloody Sunday with "that English actress." (An off-screen car crash overheard during one of the sessions indicates Losey's Accident, why not.) Hectic planes of action include quarrelsome shadow play behind silk screens and a slow-motion free-for-all, "Someone to Watch Over Me" gets the Long Goodbye treatment. "Silly song." "Very silly." The whirling integers are paired up in the end, modern romance is an off-key farce endured for the occasional dollop of chocolate mousse. "I could never love someone who misses metaphors." The best antidote is Akerman's A Couch in New York. With Cris Campion, Sandrine Dumas, and Bertrand Bonvoisin.
--- Fernando F. Croce |